The Box: T.V. & Electronics News – 5/11/08

1) Smallville’s Lex Luthor, actor Michael Rosenbaum, is leaving the CW television series after seven seasons, though the door is apparently open for future guest appearances. He follows producers/show creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who stopped helming the series last month. Actress Kristin Kreuk, who plays love interest Lana Lang on the show, will still be in the cast, but appear in episodes on a more limited basis. Two new villains from the DC Comics world will join the show – Doomsday, famous for killing Superman in the comics series, and a dangerous unnamed female character. Actress Allison Mack, who plays Clark Kent’s friend and confidante Chloe on the show, may also be leaving the series as it heads into its eighth season in the fall.

2) The SciFi Channel in U.S. cable will be airing episodes of CBS’ Ghost Whisperer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as a woman able to communicate with ghosts, in the fall of 2009. This is the latest in a multiple syndication deal between the cable channel and CBS, allowing the SciFi Channel to run other shows from CBS’ television library, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, starting in June 2008, as well as shows like Charmed, Early Edition, Highlander, Friday the Thirteenth: The Series and the Robin Williams sitcom Mork & Mindy.

3) Natasha Henstridge, James Cromwell, Benjamin Sadler, Florentine Lahme, and David James Elliott will star in Impact, a two-part SF disaster TV movie, about a dwarf star striking the moon and wreaking havoc on Earth. The miniseries is currently shooting in British Columbia with director Mike Rohl at the helm from a script by Michael Vickerman. The movie will air worldwide in more than 90 territories. 

4) Warner Brothers is launching a new interactive website, TheWB.com, in August. The new site will have streaming video of shows produced by Warner Brothers Television or created on the former WB channel. Shows will include Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Roswell. The site will also have links to Facebook for social networks of fans of the shows. Warner Brothers also has a sister site, KidsWB.com, for kids aged 6-11, that offers original Looney Tunes cartoons and new programming such as the DC Comics property Plastic Man and a new version of The Wizard of Oz.

5) The American version of the British scifi series Life on Mars may not have producer David E. Kelley to shepherd it on to the airwaves for ABC in the States. The renowned writer is rumored to be leaving the production, and ABC may turn it over to Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg, who did short-lived series October Road. Kelley currently holds the rights to the series and has been trying to adapt it since 2006. The show is about a modern cop who finds himself thrust back into the 1970’s. Jason O’Mara is playing the cop character in the American version.

6) Bruce Boxleitner will have a recurring role on the third season of NBC’s Heroes. The actor, well known to scifi fans for his work on Babylon 5, will be playing a politician when the show returns in the fall. Because of the writers’ strike this year, Heroes may be moving some of its second season episodes into season three, giving it possibly as many as 35 episodes for the year. NBC will air a two hour premiere for the series on September 15 in the States, preceded by a one hour clips show of past episodes. The new season will go by the title “Villains,” and include many new characters, such as a super-fast thief, the Speedster.

7) The second season of Showtime’s Masters of Horror anthology series will come out on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment in late July. The set features the 13 episodes of the second season packaged in a specially designed, limited-edition "skull" box. The DVD will have Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and include lots of making-of extras.